


The Dinner Club

by dimtraces



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Food, Multi, outsider pov pretty much, this is patently silly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-28
Updated: 2016-10-28
Packaged: 2018-08-27 14:16:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8404801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dimtraces/pseuds/dimtraces
Summary: Cooking for each other is a beloved Resistance tradition, and Jess has always been looking forward to those evenings.Enter Finn.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: absolutely zero except for silliness.

Sometimes, Jess hates whoever came up with the idea that there should be a weekly Resistance foodie get-together.

_(“Wouldn’t it be nice,” an unnamed liar who is trying to kill Jess had said a year ago, “wouldn’t it be great to just meet up sometimes, and one of us’ll cook for everyone else. The cafeteria food is great, of course,” that blasted person had added, because they are actually incapable of implying something bad about someone else for a single second, and anyway Jess agrees that the food’s tasty enough considering what there usually is to cook with, “but I know I miss my dad’s home cooking. You keep telling me they always get Dandoran fish soup wrong, and I need to try your grandma’s version! And it would really help morale as well. Bring us together as a team, you know? C’mon, Pava, bring your friends, if you have any,” Poe Dameron had winked then and shouted as he jogged away, “the rest of Black Squadron doesn’t count, because I’m inviting them first!”_

_Of course it had been Dameron. Who else? So to add insult to weirdly flavored injury, she can’t even curse him without imagining his hang-dog face saying, “But it’s good, right?” And Jess has to concede that yes, she has in fact proposed marriage to more than half of the cooks. Shut up, imaginary Poe Dameron!)_

The thing is, Finn’s cooking isn’t _bad_.

It’s just… imaginative.

The kind of imaginative where you take a naturally enthusiastic and creative young man, raise him on bland protein bars only, and then give him a datapad to research all the flavors and textures ever catalogued in all the known galaxy.

The kind of imaginative where you then take this man, and surround him with pfassking enablers who tell him he doesn’t have to follow recipes. Not if he doesn’t want to. _(“You’re free, Finn,” Dameron is shouting with tears in his eyes. “You’re a rebel now! Throw off the fetters of the culinary industry!” Finn is throwing himself into Dameron’s arms, also crying obviously, and thinking furiously about murdering Jess with a menu themed around_ purple food _(a true classic). At least Jess is fairly sure that that’s how that conversation went.)_

Today, Jess is apparently having veritable mountains of peas for dinner, is what she’s saying.

Large yellow Corellian ones, spicy black peas from Kashyyyk, red peas. There are green peas, which Finn must’ve dug out from the very back of the pantry, because they’re kriffing bitter and no-one likes them. There are pigeon peas and chickpeas and banthapeas and many more that Jess doesn’t recognize, and even Mygeeto peas, which Jess is fairly sure are as far from being actual _peas_ as any creatively named beetle eggs can be. But far be it from her to rain on Finn’s parade.

Some of them have sauces, and beautifully piped bits of cream, and they’re all spiced differently. Very very differently. Did Jess just hear the words “bubblegum extract”? Oh dear force please no.

There are powdered designs drawn with military precision on some of the pea mountains. The powder is turquoise. It sparkles.

“Enjoy your meal! I’m so happy you’ve all come. Everything’s edible for everyone here and capable of satisfying all daily nutritional needs,” Finn says, beaming and sitting down between Poe and Rey when everyone else’s settled in as well, and _of course_ he’s looked that up. He’s probably spent a lot of time with a spreadsheet and a calculator today. It’s hard to imagine someone one-upping Dameron in responsibleness, but somehow Finn manages it.

Now, if only all that meticulousness was directed towards the recipe for an Ithori chocolate cake…

Sometimes, it falls upon a brave individual to make a stand for the good of society.

However, Jess reminds herself, many a brave revolutionary has found themselves hounded and crucified by the authorities. Especially if they haven’t bothered to look for like-minded people beforehand, and instead just climbed upon a box in a market square and preached that Dandora should join the Galactic Republic, even though the queen was in town right now and everyone knew that Queen Alf II’s wife had just run off to Coruscant to become an opera singer. (Take that, kindergarten teachers who said that Jess was “too energetic to listen to storybooks.”)

While the pots and bowls are passed around the table, Jess discreetly looks for allies.

Dameron is right out. Whatever Finn does, he’s too busy smiling at him to worry much about the particulars.

Rey, bless her, will eat anything. In fact, she’s already half polished off whatever type of peas she’s piled on her plate while she waits for the next bowl. Her speed is doubly impressive given that she’s only got one hand free for cutlery. The other is, as usual, clasped tightly in Finn’s own and resting on the table. It only moves whenever Finn needs two hands to gesture while he talks the impressed—and, Jess thinks, faintly nauseous—guests through his process for determining whether the homebrew vinegar goes better with brown peas or banthapeas. Apparently, it works well with both, and the Mygeeto peas as well.

“But the true secret for those is the cinnamon! I really didn’t like them at first, so I asked Poe and he suggested we look up traditional recipes. Turns out, more than half of them use it. Apparently, the cinnamon compliments a sort-of bitter flavour in the beetles…”

Jess has just locked eyes with Karé—finally, a kindred soul—when a horrible thought strikes her.

What if she criticises Finn’s food, and Finn is sad? A sad Finn will mean a sad Poe, and sad Poe always makes them do extra morning drills. Extra morning drills means getting up an hour earlier or having to forego her third cup of hot cocoa for breakfast, and that is simply unacceptable. (A sad Finn would also be, well, sad, and after all the crap he’s been through he’s entitled to experimenting a little, Jess’ conscience adds, sounding disturbingly like Dameron in the way all consciences do.)

Sighing, she spoons some sugared peas onto her plate.

They are green.

Sithspit.

.

(A week later, she pulls Finn aside and introduces him to the miracle that is baking. And she finally, finally gets her kriffing chocolate cake.)

**Author's Note:**

> So I usually spend my time imagining Finn's sad childhood. This is not what's happened here. But I've watched the finale of Bakeoff today, and it got me thinking about what kind of cakes Finn would bake (well-constructed ones with imaginative, occasionally bad flavor combinations!), and this happened.
> 
> I do like peas. A lot. Sometimes, when I'm only cooking for myself, I eat a whole plate of them with some yoghurt with mint and caramelized onions. Frankly, I think Finn's onto something here.
> 
> Melodramatic Jess Pava is fun to write!
> 
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
